Songs of Experience is the companion release to 2014’s ‘Songs of Innocence’, the two titles drawing inspiration from a collection of poems, Songs of Innocence and Experience, by the 18th century English mystic and poet William Blake. Produced by Jacknife Lee and Ryan Tedder, with Steve Lillywhite, Andy Barlow and Jolyon Thomas, the album features a cover image by Anton Corbijn of band-members’ teenage children Eli Hewson and Sian Evan.

The lyrical approach of the album was greatly inspired by Irish poet, novelist and Trinity College, Dublin Professor Emeritus Brendan Kennelly’s advice to Bono to “write as if you’re dead’, resulting in a collection of songs in the form of intimate letters to places and people close to the singer’s heart - family, friends, fans, himself.

COMMENTS

If SOI was a look into the past and SOE is a word to the presence, I am waiting for Songs of Future. May it be verses of hope or despair like in the psalms. Imagine U2 giving the penitential psalms a new sound.

paoladegliesposti

14 December, 2017

Songs of Experience

That has been my ear at the U2' albums since the beginning, from ' Love is all we have left' passing through Lights of homes' and onwards having each track, I recognize Steve Lillywhite as producer. or at least as one of them. Very beautiful written introduction and amazing shade of blue.for the coverI like this album. Absolutely.

gshugrue

11 December, 2017

Reflections

First off, thanks for dropping this on my 50th birthday! Best present! I've listened to this deeply reflective album over and over and find it fits perfectly with the place I find myself-looking back at 50 years and contemplating all the choices and decisions I've made to get to where I am now. U2 has always been a soundtrack to my life and I just wanted to say Thank You from the bottom of my heart for all the years of brilliant, thoughtful, fantastical, joyful, heartbreaking music.

chris42

09 December, 2017

The Edge missing from Experience.

As a lifelong fan, I have come to know and respect your music for good or bad. No Line On The Horizon had a hand full of good songs. Songs of Innocents 4 or 5 more. Songs of Experience, maybe 5 at best. I'm not trying to break you guys down, rather challenge you. Track 2 and track 7 Red Flag Day is U2 are IMO the best on this CD. Give us more songs like these! Red Flag Day, I hear Edge singing backup, hard guitar throughout .On the rest of the CD what was missing was The Edge. His delay on guitar his input We crave his delay, when he plays. I'm sure the upcoming tour will have these songs, for me when a band goes on tour, the new stuff is played, and if it stands up, it becomes the stuff of Streets Have No Name, Beautiful Day, Vertigo....
You guys have so much potential.... Don't let it be defined by this.
We need that hard Edge.
TK/TB-41066,out...
Thank You.

chusplus

07 December, 2017

Thanks guys!

When Songs of Innocence was released, this album was a must for me. I bought tickets for each and every night in Barcelona that year, but two months after this I died. Yes I died in an operating room. Luckily I was resurrected and my memories about these days was me lying on a hospital bed listening to Songs of Innocence at my tablet, one time and another and another one after that... Today, those days bring me a sensation of sadness and joyfulness, and Songs of Innocence nailed at my heart. Later that year I can’t attend two of the four nights at Barcelona due to my functional mobility that prevent me to be stand during a live performance (one of them at Red Zone, sigh!)
So, Songs of Innocence was my medicine and now I receive Songs of Experience as a new doses of healthy medicine to my heart and mind. U2 and their music accompanied me at my very bad moments and now it’s time to join you at the good ones. Listening every song, feeling every chord, scaring at every silence. And waiting to see you in Barcelona again.
Thank you everyone for all your great music.

Europa_Thomas

01 December, 2017

Beautiful

Thanks for the wonderful new album, Bono, Edge, Adam, Larry, Ryan, Jackknife, Steve, Andy, Jolyon, Anton, Eli, Sian, Ali, and everyone who helped make the album. It was 100% worth waiting for and buying 2 copies of (iTunes and the free CD for buying concert tickets, I can't wait to hear these songs live).
I like all of U2's albums, but I've never liked one so much so quickly. Every other album I've had to listen to 10 or more times to know what I really think of all the individual songs and of the album as a whole, since a good album must have not just strong songs, but good cohesion between all the songs, and SOE has both in superabundance. Great job.
Right now, my favorite track is a tie between Summer of Love and The Landlady. As great as the single releases were, and they were great, they were surpassed by their more intimate sisters on the album.
Thanks again for the early Christmas present, everyone, and Merry Christmas!

jansonjones

30 November, 2017

A Comment for Someone, I suppose

I've got to admit, I find this album to be something really, really special -- and on the eve of its official release, it's go me in a special kind of reflective mood.
I've been a U2 fan since I first heard "Pride (In the Name of Love)" on the radio in 1984. I was just a kid, a Florida swamprat, a rascal with his radio, a kid with an itch for kick and sound. I remember heading to the local record shop to try to figure out what band I had heard on the radio. The store clerk asked me what the song was called. My guess was "In the Name of Love." The record store guy was delighted; he knew the song, he said. It's great, he said. And that's how I discovered and owned my first Thompson Twins album. heh. On my next trip back to the record shop a few days later, the universe was aligned and I finally figured out who U2 was -- and shortly after discovered The Unforgettable Fire.
The rest is, as they say, history.
I could share innumerable and intimate stories of my life bookmarked, indexed, and soundtracked by the release of U2 singles and albums. I remember so many first listens... I remember so many specific moments when the music served as a tool for reflection and/or for focus. Music's never really been a passive game for me, though it does often ambiently play in the background of my day-to-day. Music is somewhere I go to for guidance, for clarity, for introspection, for soul. Through each of U2's phases, I've found something of great value and, in retrospect, grave necessity. And I'm grateful for that. Your music has meant something to me for decades upon decades.
These are some of my thoughts upon first listening to Songs of Experience -- in late November of 2017, in a time and a place that seems insane, chaotic, and utterly unreal. Unlike that kid who first discovered The Unforgettable Fire in 1984, I've seen how vicious and violent this world can be. I've seen abuse. I've seen horror. I've felt the pain and anguish of loss, of betrayal, of self-destruction -- personally, politically, and spiritually. And yet, here I am, moving forward, step by step -- even as my country feels like it's rolling backward into a nightmarish past that never really existed in the first place.
You speak much of love on this album, of the contrasts between the light and the dark. That's always appealed to me, that contrast between light and dark -- something U2's focused on time and again over the years. Contradiction, that's the place. I went into this album feeling like it would play as a sunset album -- as the ending of something. A closure of sorts. On the backside of Songs of Experience, however, I feel like it is actually a beginning, a sunrise. All endings, after all, provide the opportunities for new beginnings. And the beginning of something is often marked by the ending of something else. There's a transition here, for U2, for my nation, for myself, for the world, for all of us. I'm not sure where we're going, any of us really, but this album renews a sense of hope that tomorrow doesn't have to be like yesterday.
"I know the world is done
But you don't have to be
I've got a question for the child in you
Before it leaves
Are you tough enough to be kind
Do you know your heart has its own mind
Darkness gathers around the light
Hold on, hold on" - 13
So, thank you for this.
Songs of Experience is a beautiful album and, for me, an important and much-needed one. I think many of us feel that way right now -- and our hearts are warm with loving thoughts tonight.
Best,
Janson